The Charger английская версия Зарядки - незавершен

Перевод:
The Charger
Abstract
The meeting of two people is always the contact of the two worlds with two different views, with different values. Sometimes these worlds are as different as the other civilizations of planets… And sometimes, even within the extraterrestrial contact, there seems something in common to be found! The pilot of the spaceship, who was crashed and then rescued by the geologists-researchers, got acquainted with the people and the short communication with him led to some deeper understanding of the range of quite simple down to earth issues.
‘Lusia! They’re coming! Lusia-a!’ Sen’ka, a trainee, was yelling at the top of his young mighty voice having not run up to the shed of the field kitchen yet.  Alma got out from beneath the bench and barked slightly to meet him, idly stretching yawned and trotted following right behind him. Sen’ka kicked open the wooden door of a log cabin and, pushing his head inside, cried out once again.       
‘Lusia, are you here?’
‘What are you yelling for?’ a bit fattish,  dark-haired  woman of middle age peeked out  from the corner of the wooden-made  frame; she was a cook of the geologists-research group No 7319, named in person Lyudmila Gromova and in everyday life  simply called Lusia.
‘There…they come…Our men are coming; Petrovich sent me to you here and Sanich told to warm up water, much water! Just boiling hot water! And lunch – isn’t it ready so far?’ hardly holding the breath in, reported Senya.
‘Everything’s ready already. Don’t have to yell out like that’, she was collecting aluminum spoons and bowls from the shelves, counting them all to herself. ‘Do you want it poured in your bowl right away?’ she asked, noticing that he had already grabbed a piece of a flapjack and was chewing it piece by piece.
‘Nope, I’ll be waiting for the guys.’
‘And d’you know what Sanich needs water for?’
‘Ah! There’s an injured man, Petrovich told to warn San Sanich about him, so I just hasted to him at first and then ran here.’ Sen’ka motioned his hand in a way to show his long route to the kitchen, completing the gesture by holding a piece of a flapjack just in front of Luska’s face.
‘Oh,dear! Why didn’t you tell at once? Who’s injured? And badly-y?’
‘I…I don’t know anything. One can’t see so far away! There seems a stretcher behind the horses, someone might have broken his leg – I just went to see and check the weighted lines at the Yenisei and then I saw our men climb down the slope of the mound and Petrovich was fast galloping to me shouting… well, telling me to run fast here and he himself turned back to them. They might be coming up here right now!’
Barbos, who had been participating in the conversation lazily wiggling his tail, all of a sudden became alerted, pricked up his peaked ears, began to growl and rushed to the Yenisei and in a moment vanished behind the wooden cabin; then he came into view again and eventually, totally disappeared beneath the slope as if he dived off a steep rock. Lusia left the spoons on the table, darted out from under the shade and followed the trace of Barbos as if she was expecting some very important news, putting her palm against her forehead.
If anyone had asked her at that moment whether she had any kind of premonition, she would have replied,
’Ah-h! A bit worried about our men and feel a little bit curious. That’s it.’
No sooner had the dust that was raised behind the dog settled down on the track, than there were some voices heard; one of the horses' head had just appeared over the cliff and the second horse was being led by the bridle, while the men were approaching the shed and someone was waving his hand to her, shouting, ‘Hello, Lusien’ka!’
She was just smiling, nodding her head… but, alas, she had no time to reply and even wave back; Lucy had already got a bowl in one hand and a ladle in the other; she bustled with the bucket full of soup and in spite of the burning curiosity inside of her, she missed the moment when the horse with the stretcher turned over to a little cabin of Dr. San Sanych.
When everybody had already greeted her and sat down at a long table each having a bowl and a spoon, she noted to herself with astonishment, murmuring “hey, our people are all at the place safe and sound but who is on a stretcher then? They are sitting and chatting over”, she even counted them all over to herself to make sure everybody was there, apart from Dr. San Sanych, who, in fact, had always his special schedule. He often turned not to appear at the lunch or dinner table but stayed in, reading and writing something all the time. Then, in the moonlight and stars late at night he would come out and rattle a bucket removing the leftovers of cereal out from the bottom of it under the kitchen shed. Only the doctor was allowed such freedom in the kitchen and even she herself would sometimes bring him a thoroughly served tray with the meal into his cabin - for the Doctor not to forget to eat because of his science.
‘Well, but who is wounded’, wondered Lusia to herself; although she was very much curious, she didn’t dare ask any further questions. It’s no good interfering while they are eating.  ‘When the bowls are empty, they are sure to start their chatting again and then the mystery will be revealed - she only has to wait a little’, she thought to herself.
Lusia sat down for a while on the steps of a carved log cabin which served both a working place and a home for her. Then, somewhere in the pine tree branches over her head a magpie chattered and Lusia, taking notice of it, smiled to it as if to her oldest acquaintance. How nice it is that this year the campsite was set on the bank of the Yenissei River on the steep slope of the mound where there was the edge of a vast Taiga! Probably, the Old Believers cut down the edge of the forest and built that kind of a log cabin under a lonely standing branchy pine long, long time ago. Who were those people, why they came to Taiga and why they disappeared’, Lusia wondered but she could not answer as that was not known. However, she was grateful to them for that convenient and cozy living place. And the shed under the pine as well as the long wooden table with benches at it – all that was up to the place. There were the geologists’ cabins and those of other workers and behind them, almost at the edge of the cliff; there was the doctor’s cabin with the sign “First-aid post”. The log cabin which stood a bit aside was the Head of the Party’s home. He was called Petrovich. They were lucky with him, since he was kind, never scolded or shouted in vain as the rest of the Chiefs; he was very industrious and a lot caring about his people - he ordered to fix a shelter shed over the stove and employed an assistant cook for her in the kitchen. Generally, he loved all the improvements to be made as he himself was constantly beating something with the hatchet, which seemed to be a trifle at first, but without it no shelves beneath the shed or benches near the cabins would appear. Lusia was holding her head in her hands gazing at the geologists who were chewing at that moment; and they seemed so close to her as if they were her relatives that she even felt much excitement deep in her heart. For this season they were her family since she did not have her own. After the orphanage she went on to the culinary college because she thought there was nothing so much important as to feed the people. The orphanage kitchen was without any doubts the most amazing place for her in the whole world and the people working there were the most wonderful magicians busy with the most important thing ever – transforming some dirty dull vegetables, non-appetizing cereal or meat into delicious soup, stew, salads, or steaks, or cutlets or even tasty pastries or pies…  
Who could be a better and a kinder magician than a cook in the orphanage kitchen to those children who hardly ever felt full in the stomach, let alone be fed with some delicacies or whatsoever?
In spite of the long years of her working experience, Lusia had still been so much devoted to her job full of awe and hollowed thrill that anyone else could have regarded it as tedious and a lot more tiring, but not her. She loved watching people eating food prepared by her as some creative art work most of all in her life. She felt herself very important and needed at such moments.
Almost twenty of tired grown-up men were hungrily eating everything clinking with their spoons smiling contentedly and talking over the meal. And after it, somebody would definitely say “Thank you a lot’ and “that was nobody else in the whole world who would be cooking so deliciously as her”. What would they be doing without her? Probably they would not be starving but they wouldn’t be so much contented either. While watching them, Lusia was dreaming of having her own large family who would also gather all together at a long dinner table and it would be so noisy and alive like it was now…As if waking up from those pleasant dreams Lusia startled and tried to listen to their conversation attentively:
‘There was such an appalling rumbling that we could hear those cracking sounds under our feet… Right… That must have been the plane which crashed and exploded.’

‘It’s good that I snatched Boy by the lead but he floundered aside, being so much scared and he would have galloped away into deep taiga if hadn’t I calmed him down with all my might.’

‘Yeah, Mika also hardly let me sit astride on her back or else she would have dropped me down, stupid creature.’

‘But Barbos is a good fellow; he is not only cool at sniffing the squirrel! If it hadn’t been for him, we wouldn’t have noticed this pilot at all.’

‘And that's interesting, he was lying his face down in the water, well, just like a drowned man! And when we pulled him out on the bank, he started breathing!’

‘Who knows, he might have just reached the shore when he ran out of all his strength and stamina, feeling so much feeble.’

‘You'll say he swam: how could he be swimming, when he was contused?  He's been unconscious!’

‘Erm, no, he hadn’t catapulted, he must have been thrown out by the explosion wave straight to the shore and the plane cannot be seen anywhere.’

‘They must have already been searching for him everywhere…’

‘Of course, they must be looking for him.’

‘Eh, if only the ratio was working…- it would make good if we informed.’

‘If it had not dropped on the floor by you when drunk, it would still be working.’

‘And why to call me ‘drunk’ right away ?! It was dark there and I tripped over it and it dropped!’

The conversation went on in another direction, and Lusia's curiosity required some additional information.

‘So, what does the pilot say by himself?’ she asked as though by the way and moved ahead to put the dirty dishes away.

‘He’s unconscious, when he comes round, he’ll tell you everything by himself, Lusen’ka’

‘If he will come round…’
‘He certainly will come round, he’s got his limbs safe and the clothes of his aren’t torn.’
‘Eh, he’s got his pilot’s rubber suit and it’s very strong like your rubber boots but at all his size, you ignorant lot.’
‘Ahh, listen, how it may happen that the things on top of a man are strong and not ruined but inside all the guts and the liver are badly injured? You see?!’
‘San Sanych will handle all that and cope with the pilot, he’s a very good Doc and you know he’s got magical hands. Remember two years ago a bear attacked Steven and we thought he would not have survived; so much blood had been lost and so many wounds he had got… and the main point was that he, an idiot, himself came up closer to the beast in spite of my warnings. I had told him not to get so much close to the bear, particularly when they are breeding, but he would not have listened, claiming he wanted to take the unique pictures, and there he went!!! He nearly got his own skin ripped off then and me, I was so much scared to shoot at them, lest not shoot Steven dead.’
‘Vovchik, what’s that gun for the bear?! Nothing! You could shoot off all the bullets into him and get them stuck in his thick fur or push it down through his throat – all things would have been in vain. The bear won’t have even noticed.’
‘Hmmm, yeah…  The gun at the bear is totally worthless.’
‘Well, not the worthless.’
‘Ahh-ha, only just to be able to shoot oneself, that’s it.’
‘Thank God, the bear didn’t dare to chase us wasting his time; got ribbed off Steven’s patch of skin at his ribs and ran away chasing his girl.’
‘Hah. He wouldn’t have needed you, guys. He needed her. Besides, he minded his own business, so to say.’
‘And you know what? It’s interesting how is that the beast like that can ever chase a person, not even you can ride away on your horse, so much rapid he is! And not even a leaf rustles, nor does a little branch or a twig crackle! How is it? I can’t understand…’
‘Who told you that? Or you can say you’ve seen it by yourself?’
‘No, not me. Just a forest warden told me so, Demyanych, by name.’
‘The one who saw it won’t tell you anything ever again…’
Lusia, having done all the washing-up, made up her mind to fetch San Sanich the dinner and at the same time to have a look at that poor pilot suffering. What if her aid was needed!
Lusia had not come up to the wide open door of the cabin yet when she heard the voices and holding back her breath stood still behind the door. That was not just done because she wanted to eavesdrop a secret, as there were no secrets in the party: everyone was seen. She just did not want to bother the people talking and disrupt with her unexpected arrival. So she stepped a little aside and leaned against the wall frozen still, listening to the voices. Her hands were trembling from the nervousness she felt and a spoon clinked on a tray.
‘Listen, Petrovich! Are you certain he was found at once just after the explosion?’
‘No, not at once… when it exploded we were in the bore pit and then rushed to the lake – it may have been in half an hour or about an hour, I’m not sure. I don’t have a watch, only watching the sun.’
‘Oh, you see, more or less than an hour - it doesn’t matter much. What does matter is that he probably had been out of meal for two weeks or more. This is the case of obvious starvation, that’s why he was unconscious.
‘How could that be so? He’d what fallen off, from another plane? There wasn’t anybody or anything around. Are they falling in packs form the sky, you want to say?’
‘There might have been some military training or whatever… It’d be nice if we could have got through with the authorities in the region…’
‘How can we get through if we got our ratio broken down and I haven’t got any carrier pigeons? I’ve been thinking of sending someone off, but who will go through taiga a thousand of kilometers? They’ll surely get lost somewhere in it. And moreover, we won’t be able to see the helicopter until August.’
‘So far, I’ve given him some glucose and vitamins injections. We’ll see when he comes round. He hasn’t got any serious injuries, so I don’t think he’ll die.’
Then a stool was heard to be pulled away and Lusia could hear the steps shuffling around the cabin, evidently the conversation had been drawn to its end. Lusia intentionally was approaching the door loudly.
‘Good eve, San Sanich! I’ve fetched something here for you,’  and she looked around as if seeking for the place where to put it down, but having found no place for that, got frozen at the doorstep.
‘Oh,dear! You needn’t have bothered. I’ve just been about to come myself.’ the Doctor hustled a bit stepping forward to her.’
‘So, Doc, in case you may need any help, get it straight to me. I can leave Sen’ka along with you. He is hanging around without any job. So you may send him up to me any time.’ said Petrovich, trying to get passed Lusia to the exit.
What Lusia desperately wished for was to make a few steps more inside and take a closer glimpse of what was really happening behind the white sheet hanging like a curtain against the cabin with a bed standing behind it. If only she could have a look at the pilot! He seemed a hero to her just like in war films, being bandaged all over, clearly shaven with a glowing look on his face.
In films all pilots were heroes and certainly clearly shaven; not as these geologists, all with beards and stubble but only with some difference in time- growing.
‘Then, I’m leaving, Sanich’, Petrovich gave a quick nod and went out.
San Sanych finally freed a tray from Lusia and started placing it on the edge of the table, putting aside mugs,  little jars and books.
‘And this is for the pilot…’ Lusia was thinking distressfully of how she could be of a help to the starving pilot. ‘Maybe I could make him some soup with tinned meat?’ As if asked herself, she suggested.
‘In no way! How can we?! No tinned meat in case of starvation! - San Sanych exclaimed, shaking his head in objection.
‘I can make cereal with condensed milk or semolina’, Lusia said hurryingly making up a diet menu for the pilot.
‘No-no-no!!!’ San Sanych looked strictly at Lusia over his glasses and wiggled his index finger in front of her face to ensure her more. ‘You may feed bears here with condensed milk’
‘Why do you say so? Look, all the geologists here…’ Lusia started stammering at a loss for she didn’t know how to help a starving man for the first time in her life and thus, she felt herself terribly guilty.
‘A geologist’s stomach does not much differ from a bear’s and they are all as strong as these bears”, San Sanich waved his hand in disagreement.
“Then why he sick and weak set for taiga?’ Lusia evidently was not able to get it into her mind.
“He may not be sick at all, just fatigued… and after a long starvation a man just needs some herbal decoction and then some broth and only after that you may give…’
‘What? Decoction?  I’ll make it at once’, Lusia hurried away to the door.
‘Here you are St. John’s wort and if you’ve got some red bilberries, you can add them to the decoction’, said San Sanich and he searched for some whisks of dry St. John’s wort on the shelves and handed them to her.
‘No, I’ve got no red bilberries left. All red bilberries were pilfered by a chipmunk. I’ll send Sen’ka to the marshes to gather some more. But you have a meal, please as it’s all been cooled down already I’ll rush, in a minute I’ll have water boiled and make the decoction as you say...’ Lusia was already backing towards the door, pressing the whisk of St. John's wort to her breast.
- Well, not just right now ... You, darling, get some herbs boiled tonight and let it draw throughout a night, and tomorrow morning he might wake up, then we'll see,’ the doctor replied.
‘All right, San Sanych, I'll get it done in a minute,’ Lusia nodded once more and rushed to follow the instructions, as if the life of the hero pilot depended only on her now.
Having eaten his dinner, the Doctor peeped behind the sheet, sat down on the stool nearby the bed on which the body of a pilot lay covered by the white sheet up to the chin, touched slightly his cheek with his fingers, and then he was touching the pilot’s pulse, sighed hard and murmured something odd – ‘who is making such cruel experiments?’ he wondered to himself. ‘These can’t be our people?!’ ‘Or you might have been coming here from China, dear?’ ‘They may have been looking for you everywhere now and it’s good the ratio’s out of order. At least you’ll have enough time to come to yourself.’
Early in the morning, no matter how hard Lus’ka tried to do her best, waking and getting up at dawn, trying to get some spare minutes to run up to the Doc, fetch him the healing decoction and learn something more about the pilot’s health,- everything was in vain. And it was all Sen’ka’s fault – he had overslept again.
In general, it happened quite often and it did not surprise anybody. He was just seventeen, a very young guy and as they might say he was absolutely frivolous; a student of the Krasnoyarsk SGI, either the mining geological or a gas prospecting – geological institute, a freshman, who was sent here as a trainee to do some practice. Actually, his full name was Arsentiy which was written down in the official papers but it came to be called so only in cases when he appeared to get someone into a particularly strong agitation. That was the case when he led the horses to a watering place to the Yenisei and happened to lose two of them: a red-maned Mika and a sorrel horse called Boy. They were later found of course, if to put it right - not “found”, but they came out of the dark taiga by themselves and then, the hostler Vovchyk would roar at him all week long calling ‘Ar-r-r-senti-i-iy’. It was long ago, when Petrovich had sent Sen’ka to assist the hostler. After that Sen’ka even learnt how to hobble the horses. Or another case, for instance, when he assisted the geologists at the beginning and mixed up all the markings of the samples out of the bore pit and then finally got lost them all. That is not even that he had lost them since the box was pretty much heavy and very big! He had just put it away into a secret place but he couldn’t remember by himself where it was. That would have been okay if only, when they went to the old bore pits again, three of them had not been completely collapsed!
The men used to growl at him for a long time: ‘Ar-r-r-sentiy, "Ar-r-sentiy, don’t dare to go to the pits ever again, not even closer than a mile”. “You’ll make it collapse but we’ll have to dig that damned pit again but we don’t get paid for this. Next time you’ll clear it out by yourself!’
Then Demyanich found a bear trail nearby the pits and told a joke that it must have been a bear making such an order on his habitat – leveled up all the pits he found behind you. But still the geologists had a grudge against Sen’ka and they tried to keep him away from their affairs from that very time on.
Petrovich, the chief executive of this geological prospecting party No. 7319, thought for a while where Sen’ka could do less harm let alone bring any benefit to anyone and had him help Lusia. At least she would get him busy with some errands and look after him. At first, Lusia got delighted as she would not have to chop the woods alone or bring the water in buckets out of the river as it was quite hard for a woman. And besides, she would have some man alive to drop a word to, but not only a dog or a chipmunk. But only after Sen’ka had intended to do the washing up and then got five bowls drowned in the waters of Yenisei, did Lusia realize what a walking disaster he actually was. She did not complain to Petrovich about him, though. She did not send him out of the kitchen. She treated him as if he was her younger brother but good for nothing. She would scold at him time and again and flap him on the back with a towel but then she would pity him and give some more of the dinner or leave the best baked mince pie for him. In spite of being so messy and sloppy, Sen’ka was a kind and honest guy; never tried to hide something away or be sly. Sen’ka would always hurry to report even of his absurd misdoings or faults with the bribing sincerity. All of his reports would start in the same way. He would open wide his sincere grey eyes and hold his bony hands tight to his chest keeping on saying, ‘It’s not my fault. I didn’t want this. I didn’t dare to think like this. Let me just explain to you everything; it happened like this by itself. This was just a misfortune!’ You could not say that Sen’ka did not think about it carefully, you could not call him an idiot either, he did think about something but certainly not about the consequences to which his misdoings could lead. He hardly had any vague ideas of cause-and-effect relation, whatever odd it would sound; that is why any other thing either got lost or dropped or got broken down “by itself” or “accidentally”. Lusia got a bit used to the fact that Sen’ka was in no habit of thinking and analyzing either by his temper or because of the youth. Who may know?
However, before sending Sen’ka on errands Lusia thought carefully it over to the minor details and felt it obligatory to provide him with all necessary instructions. Nevertheless, there still happened some incidents to him which she obviously found hard to have foreseen. What seemed to be most simple as to do the washing up after dinner? So, Sen’ka somehow decided it was insensible to bring water from the Yenisei and it would have been better as well as easier to take all the dishes, bowls and others down to the river and wash up there at the spot. Unfortunately, Lusia got distracted a little and did not notice he had already gone away along with a cauldron full of dirty dishes and cutlery. There he turned it over and dropped all the dishes and bowls into the water and was just going to clean them with river sand, when all of a sudden His Majesty Accident happened, which he in no way could have foreseen.
‘And there some newly-hatched fish floated towards the shore and there was some porridge spilt over the water which they started to feed themselves with. I can say the fish were so funny! I wanted to grab one of these and show it up to you but I failed. They were so quick that I couldn’t grab and hold any. I wanted then to catch them in a cauldron where some more porridge was left on the sides and thus I waved in by one hand while helped with another hand from the other side… and then I saw all the fry had floated away, I only managed to take off my pants to catch them but the bowls had floated away too, far away with the current… Then I saw them carried away faster and got drowned. And can you imagine how icy the water was?! I even jumped out of water onto the shore to get a bit warm and then again into the river to get the dishes out of the water but it turned out to be impossible. I could go into shallow water up to my knees but no more than that: I could feel the cramps in my legs. But I’ll get a small young fish sooner or later, I promise. It may be a sturgeon’s newly hatched fish. If we put it into a jar, it may have grown into a bigger fish?’
So how could she have quarreled at him? He is still a child in his teens, although he has grown quite tall. Thank God he did not drown himself. Lusia sighed, felt a pity for the drowned bowls as well as him, muddle-headed and, of course, she pitied and at the same time blamed herself for all the losses since she had not been careful enough. She should have watched out. To have such an assistant in the kitchen meant having a lot of fun while cooking.  However, getting things ready took longer.
That morning Lusia had to heat the stove herself and bring a bucket with water from the river as Sen’ka had overslept. He had not brought water before. When he arrived, he seemed to have his head in clouds; so careless was he that he turned over a bowl with clean spoons and dropped them all on the ground. But that very day Lusia could not stop thinking of the pilot rather than keeping in mind her own responsibilities. That is why she did not dare to scold Sen’ka even once. Doc San Sanich failed to appear at the breakfast. He hardly ever came to have breakfast at all. Petrovich and his geologists were also very rare guests. The only people who appeared for breakfast were the diggers who always had breakfast too early so that they were able to dig out the pits according to the accepted requirements until noon. Then in the afternoon they would work very hard on the stony dry soil of the 4th category until they were feeling fatigue when the sun was still high up in the sky. Afterwards they came up to the field kitchen when Lusia had still been cooking the dinner and would be waiting for it under the shed. It happened sometimes they did not turn up for the dinner when the soil was sandy and easy to work on. By lunchtime the team of geologists together with Petrovich and San Sanych would come up to the kitchen. But Lusia was so very much anticipating the news that she could not wait any longer. She told Sen’ka to peel potatoes for “borshch”, a starter for lunch, and having poured some ladle of the healing broth into a bottle hurried up towards the First Aid Post.
The entire First Aid post consisted of a building trailer in which the doctor lived and worked. Most part of his work involved reading thick books and writing the notes down in thick notebooks. Generally speaking, it was a useless job, but who might know? The people coming to work in the taiga were rather healthy and strong in most cases. They did not have a strong need to be treated by the doctor. They addressed to him only in some minor troubles, like Sen’ka, who got a fish-hook stuck in his foot and had to get it out of it, or Lusia when she had her hand badly burnt with boiling water being poured over it. The Doc gave her some disgusting stingy ointment to apply on it but it made her hand heal in no time. It was a very rare occasion that there was somebody left lying in the infirmary. The last time it was last year when a terrible incident happened to the poor geologist who got torn by a bear. There was so much blood in there at that time – one could hardly see and stand the smell of it. He was staying there rather long. He was able to limp slightly alone without anyone’s help to the kitchen to have lunch or dinner just in a fortnight or so. Nobody could have thought he would survive then. San Sanych made such a miracle; obviously all his knowledge and experience were needed which he drew out of those thick books. So the books were also of great use, one should admit.
The Doc’s cabin which used to be painted light blue and now turned almost white in the sun with some rusty spots on the walls had the sign above the entrance ‘First Aid Post’ and on the side of it there was a big red cross. It really looked lively and welcoming.
Sen’ka was the fellow who upon his arrival at the place had been ordered to do such a job as painting all that. He certainly used to be indignant at first asking all the time what it was there for and who needed that as “everybody living there was just aware what it was for and the fact that the Doc lived in it and that no strangers came there.”
‘If there are these instructions, they must be followed. And it’s none of your business why it is like that and who needs it. The instructions hadn’t been written by the fools.’ Petrovich replied to that strictly and roughly.
Lusia had been still feeling some deep excitement and embarrassment when looking at that Red Cross on the whitened wall of the cabin and nearly wanted to make a sign of cross with awe whenever approaching it as if she was passing by the church. She would certainly not act like that in public and she remembered how persistently they fought prejudice in the orphanage and at the culinary school. But at the bottom of her suitcase she had been secretly keeping a small cardboard icon presented to her by an old nurse Timofeyevna while she was staying in the orphanage. Somewhere deep in her soul, where strangers had never got into, she still had faith in some Superior Good Power which would save and keep her alive. It must be said that truly that faith, that secret hope supported her many times and helped her survive in the most difficult situations. And she kept and cherished this faith, because there was no one to help and give her support in this life. Maybe because the symbol of that Superior Good Power was a cross that looked like a medical one, she was treating the Doc’s cabin and the Doctor himself who temporarily resided there with the feeling of the similar awe. And now this all was added to the heroic pilot, who himself, anyway, will excite any girl, even without any infirmary with a cross! One could easily guess what confusion as well as thrilling embarrassment Lusia felt at that particular moment.
Therefore, coming up to the door, she stopped for a moment or so, removed the disheveled hair under her kerchief, pulled down her skirt, took a deep breath so that as to slightly calm down her heart  strongly beating in her breast, and only then did she knock timidly at the door. Nobody came out, and did not even respond. Lusia knocked again ... And after a while, she knocked even more loudly and persistently, and finally, without waiting for an answer, she opened the door a little and called quietly, ’San Sanych, are you here? ... I'm here ..., well ... I brought the broth, as you ordered me... ‘Again no one answered her, then she opened the door wider, stepped one foot and stuck her head inside so that she could have a little look around. There was nobody In the front part of the cabin: neither at the table full of books and notebooks, where San Sanych used to sit and work, nor on the bench leaned against the wall.
“Perhaps the doctor was sitting there at the pilot’s bedside which was behind the curtain hung crosswise dividing the cabin in half and did not respond or he might not have heard anything?” Lusia thought to herself.
There might have been a draft from a wide open door since the curtain sheet moved aside slightly and Lusia could glance at the edge of the bed. This was the bed on which the pilot was lying. She could barely resist her determination of peeping behind that particular sheet with the cheerful inscriptions "Ministry of Health" printed diagonally, which concealed a pilot from her. Some doubts still tormented her mind - as on the one side, it was right thing to come up to a sick person and ask if he needed any help - he might feel terribly thirsty and thus, the healing decoction was just appropriate; but on the other side, this was no good for her to play the mistress in the Doc’s residence.
In search of the minor tip for solution of that problem Lusia looked behind herself at the dusty road but saw nobody there who could give her some sign of a prompt. She glanced upon the wooden cabins of the geologists and stared for a while at Petrovich’s log house – there was no one there too to ask for a piece of advice. Then Lusia sighed off heavily and made up her mind to do things on her own. She bravely got loose of the door handle and stepped inside and all at once stood still as if frozen at this very spot at the Doc’s table having placed the basket with the bottle of the decoction. What if the Doc would turn up here? What a shame! But the pilot happens to lie so close to her now, just in a few more steps. How could she resist that kind of temptation! And she tiptoed those few steps separating her from him holding her breath and pulled aside the curtain. Initially she got confused: how could it be that there was no one there either?! The bed at the left wall was empty all covered by a white sheet and a stool at the head of it as well as the bed on the right looked similar to the left one from the first sight but looking more closely she could distinctively see an exhausted, skinny body lying beneath the sheet and the thin arms stretching weakly along the body and the face on the pillow looked so much pale!
The light from the small window seemed to be so dim penetrating through the curtain after the bright sunny noon that Lusia walked up softly to the head of the bed and sat down on a chair to see the pilot better... And indeed, the pilot appeared to look strikingly different from all the people around here.  He was absolutely pale, without any marks of sunburn, the skin seemed even bluish, and especially one could trace the dark shades under the eyes - as if they were the marks from the long black painted lashes. The face was with thin, almost girlish features, not even a hint of coarse stubble which made the pilot look very young. Lusia sighed off, almost sobbed, so much pity did she feel to him that she completely had forgotten all her embarrassment and excitement previously felt and particularly about her worries of the Doc arriving… All of that was so minor and worthless now. What really mattered now was to save and bring back to life that hero. Why he was a hero to her Lusia could not definitely tell but she felt sure he was her hero.
The pilot’s plane got wrecked while he was conveying some mission. So, it must have been a difficult task. How could he have crushed? Because of slobbery? The person like Sen’ka here, a slob indeed, would in no way have had such a task to accomplish. The pilot definitely must have been a hero!

Люся протянула руку и легонько, нежно коснулась лётчикова лба. Он никак не реагировал, даже ресницы не дрогнули. Да и вообще, догадаться что он всё ещё жив было сложно, разве что по еле заметному дыханию. Люся осмелела и погладила его по щеке, опять удивилась - ну что ж они такого молоденького-то послали на сложное задание? Он же совсем мальчишка, и не брился ещё поди! Люся и не заметила, как стала говорить свои мысли вслух, взяла его ладонь в свои руки, стала гладить её и тихонько разговаривать с ним - что ж ты исхудал-то так, бедолага... тяжко тебе видать жилось-то, сирота поди как и я... но я-то хоть на кухне пристроилась, всегда поем досыта, а тебя ж поди и кормить некому... ну ничо, мы тебя тут откормим, доктор у нас хороший, кого хошь на ноги живо поставит ...и будешь ты как новенький! - Как доктор вошёл, она не слышала, и когда он громко спросил: Ну как тут пришелец? - даже подскочила от неожиданности - Охти! Сан Саныч! - она стояла перед доктором и боялась глянуть ему в лицо, не зная что сказать и как провинившаяся школьница, прятала руки за спину, думая лишь о том, как бы прошмыгнуть мимо него на улицу. Однако доктор видимо совсем не сердился на неё, он присел на край койки и подержав руку лётчика в своей удовлетворенно отметил - Сегодня уже получше! - и глянув на перепуганную Люсю добавил:
- Да ты чего вскочила-то? Хочешь, так и посиди с ним.-
А можно? - обрадовалась Люся
Почему ж нельзя - пожал плечами Сан Саныч
Дык... Может я мешать Вам тут стану - смутилась Люся
Чем же ты мне мешаешь, ты мне наоборот, помогла - вон отвар зверобоя принесла - успокоил её доктор.
Да! Я ж отвар принесла, а Вас нету, я там на столе поставила - спохватилась Люся и наконец-то метнулась за висевшую занавеску, посчитав это удобным предлогом, чтобы наконец-то убраться восвоясии из этой неловкой ситуации. Уже шагнув через порог она обернулась и крикнула - Я это, я щас пойду лучше, мне там на кухне это... обед надо готовить, а опосля я ищо приду, обед сготовлю и принесу Вам - и тут же испугавшись такой своей смелости смущенно добавила,  будто оправдываясь - Вы ж опять к обеду небось не прийдёте, так я и принесу. - и не дожидаясь ответа сбежала по ступенькам и заторопилась к своим кухонным владениям.
Как она пришла, как готовила обед, она бы не могла сказать, если бы кто спросил - она этого совершенно не помнила. Даже Сеньку не заругала за то, что тот картошку чищеную водой не залил, а только вздохнула, мол - вот недогадливый, и даже на его честный-пречестный взгляд, руки прижатые к груди и  обычное : "Я щас всё объясню!Тут просто такой случай вышел..." внимания не обратила. И все подробные объяснения о том, что он-то, Сеня, "не виноват совсем, он-то догадался про воду, но как на грех, вода вся закончилась. То есть как раз она была, ещё полведра после завтрака оставалось, а Григорий всю её в умывальник вылил, а Люся не говорила Сеньке воду приносить, а велела картошку чистить, а потому он и чистил, чтоб она его не наругала, если прийдёт, а он на Енисей убёг! Не мог же Сенька её ослушаться и свой пост у ведра с картошкой оставить!" мимо её ушей пролетели.  Видимо напрасно тратил Сенька своё красноречие, убеждая Люсю в том, что это не он виноват, а Григорий, что это из-за него чищеная картошка в ведре по виду почти не отличалась от той, что в мешке ещё нечищеная оставалась. Не слушала его Люся, только махнула рукой и погнала с вёдрами на Енисей. Он даже удивился было, почему эта мелочь могла Люсю так огорчить и настолько обидеть, что она и говорить с ним перестала. Бывали ведь и посерьёзнее залёты, и ничего. Люся уже через пять минут всё забывала и опять шутила и смеялась вместе с ним. А тут молчит и молчит, далась ей эта картошка! Не знал, не мог знать Сенька, что Люся ни картошки, ни его самого, да и вообще ничего вокруг не замечает, словно во сне, и движется как лунатик совершенно бездумно, механически. Руки её действовали сами собой, автоматически выполняя давно заученные за много лет операции: Люся чистила лук и моркву, шинковала капусту а мысли её оставались всё там же, у постели больного лётчика. И когда она на мгновенье замирала, уставившись в одну точку, опять перед её глазами возникал его героический образ... Больше всего ей хотелось, конечно, вернуться в медпункт и сидеть у его постели, держать его руку в своих руках, разговаривать с ним, а вернее рассказывать ему всю свою жизнь, доверяя все печали и радости, как будто он был самым родным и близким для неё на свете. Впрочем, если бы кто так прямо и сказал бы ей об этих её мечтах, она бы нипочем не согласилась с таким неприличным предположением, а скорее бы даже оно вызвало неё искреннее возмущение. А всё оттого, что эти желания были настолько тайными, что Люся и самой себе в том не созналась бы ни за что! Когда геологи с Петровичем уже отобедали и задымили